On the Stick!

My age was showing a couple of weeks ago in the park while running.

As I came around a turn in a pathway, I saw a young couple holding a long pole with something at the end of it.

Oh, a metal detector, I thought.  A throwback.  I haven't seen someone at the park with one of those in years.

But, no.

As I got closer, I saw the thing was being held out from their shoulders.  They're going to put someone's eye out, I thought further.

And, no, that comment wasn't (just) what showed my age.

I realized they were holding a selfie stick, one of these new inexpensive Bluetooth-enabled photo-taking devices that hold a smartphone.

Selfie sticks, and selfies for that matter, are sizing up to be the hottest election administration issue of 2016.


There's even the first political book of the season on the millenials, calling them the Selfie Voters.

But selfie votes mean a little more in elections, and, especially in a presidential election.

First, the more exciting way--first time voters or just excited voters who want to take a photo of themselves voting to put on social media.

We saw that in 2012 but we know that will be rampant in 2016.  We've talked with other election administrators about running with that in a fun way, perhaps having selfie stations for voters while they wait to vote during advance voting.

I've heard some creative ideas along this line and we plan to, um, borrow, yeah, borrow, but I won't spell them out here because they truly weren't my ideas.  We'll show you as the election gets closer, though.

Another type of selfie isn't really a selfie of the voter, but rather the machine.  I voted for "Candidate," See!

Minor problem--it is illegal to leave the polling place in Kansas with a representation of who you voted for.

Major clarification--these photos aren't illegal because they are taken at the review screen before "cast ballot" is pressed.  When that selection is pressed, the selections vanish.  There is no "proof" of how someone voted.  Voters could take 50 shots of the review screen, each portending to be who they voted for.

A couple of things are clear, though.

First, the whole selfie stick thing will be new to our election workers and we're planning to demonstrate how they work during training.  We don't want the sticks misread as something else, say...a weapon or a metal detector.

Second, we're going to need a point of view on selfies and selfie sticks at polling places.  Already, selfie sticks have been both outlawed at a polling place and endorsed at a polling place, both in locations outside of Kansas.  Expect selfie legislation to be a topic in many statehouses this winter.

As election commissioner, I have to ensure that nothing disrupts the voting process, but I doubt selfie sticks will.  Regardless, I will have to have completely thought through both sides of the lens on this issue before we begin communicating with voters.

First things first, though.  In the "it's never dull" news of the day, we now have a new mail-ballot election scheduled, for February 2.  Another is on the way, any day, likely for April.

If you are counting, we've had 16 elections in the last 20 months as it is, the most we've ever had in a 2-year period.  We've had 22 in a three-year period and already have 6 scheduled, now, for 2016.

We did have 2 weeks without an active election.  Maybe we should have taken a picture with the hope it would have lasted longer.

Hay! Is That a Pumpkin?

Fall is the time for pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin carving, pumpkin pies, and hayrides on trailers accessorized by, well, pumpkins.

And, it's time we make hay for 2016 before 2015 turns into a pumpkin and the presidential election is completely, "Game on!"

We have spring elections in 2016 (we think....) and at least two mail-ballot elections considered in early 2016.  There is even talk of a countywide mail-ballot election in May, just before the June filing deadline for August and November elections.

When January rolls around, we can get busy negotiating advance voting locations.  There are a couple of large, vacant storefronts that look like attractive sites, but landlords aren't willing to accept in October 2015 that the sites will be vacant in October 2016.

They won't magically believe us in January, but we can start the dance, with the hope of buttoning everything down by April.

We also will be sending our letters to the six school superintendents of our intent to use all schools as polling places in 2016.  The new legislation that moved spring elections to the fall also requires school districts to make any schools we request by January 1 of each year available for that year's elections. 

Winter is coming, and that's when numbers will get more serious, but here in the fall of 2015 we can spitball our expectation that we will have about 400,000 registered voters for the presidential elections, 80 percent of those voters will cast ballots, about half in advance at what we expect/hope to be four sites or by mail, and the rest will vote at one of approximately 250 polling locations.

We will need to button down those polling places.  We need a plan for that.

We will need to recruit about 1,000 new election workers.  We need a plan for that.

We will need to train about 2,500 workers.  We need a plan for that.

We will need new computers at our advance sites.  We need a plan for that.

We likely will undertake an intiative to utilize electronic poll books and, probably, new voting equipment at our advance sites.  Again, we need a plan for that.

Oh, we have a plan for that.  The four largest counties have issued a request for proposal for next-generation voting equipment.  Purchasing the equipment requires further planning, but the selection process is underway.

Likewise, we will be issuing a request for proposal for electronic poll books.  Our experience in the August 18 election, when trialing them, was satisfactory and we will be looking to scale them.

We're in the process of revamping our election worker training plans and, further, have an ambitious effort to provide more education for poll agents.  We'd also like to expand the capabilities of our website to allow for automated advance ballot applications, as well as more open data on the site to reduce the time we spend on candidate orders for information.

The theme in our office for the last few months, from me, has been, "Show me the plan."

Well, in fairness, the theme has been that I'll be saying that.  Now, with about 10 weeks before year-end, we'll be getting busy with those plans.

After that, it will be all about executing. 

We can't bail hay, but we do need to make it in these 10 weeks, or else we'll be bailing in 2016 in a different way from the oncoming election wave.

Thus, the blog theme for the next few weeks will be presidential election preparation.  Whatever activity and intensity level we are at for any given day, it will double the next. 

That means that whatever intensity we are at today, by January 1 it will be, um, a lot more. 

We're going to need a bigger boat.  We better double down on Pumpkin Spice Lattes.

(This cliché ridden post was partially brought to you by caffeine.  Imagine the clichés by January).

And PEW Begot MEOC....

Early into the very successful Midwest Election Official Conference (MEOC) we conducted this week, I came to an obvious realization.

It started as I looked at our manager of election workers, Matt Woehrle, at the sound board, pulling temporary duty as an engineer.

Matt has been with our office for a few months now, but first worked for us in 2007 on a part-time basis before landing a full-time job with the Wyandotte County Election Office.  He represents, actually, what those of us longer-term administrators have envisioned--rising talent intent on building a career in election administration.

In fact, our office is morphing into one with many such employees, and that should be very comforting to Johnson County voters.

But that's the entry into the thought, not the point of the post.

Matt came in 2007 to work on what I called an election roadmap, a document that began looking at the future of elections (not equipment, but societal trends that might impact election administration) and how Johnson County should respond.

It was an ambitious project, and we made some progress before Matt went to do real work in the Here and Now.

When I began seeing the need for this work, I met with then Kansas Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh, pulled out a book called "Seeing What's Next" and explained my concerns.  I thought we should hire a consultant to help us, but we didn't have any money for such a thing.

"Do you?," I asked Ron.

"Maybe," he said.  "And there might be other sources, such as 'Pugh'."

Pugh?  What?

I later dug around and began learning about PEW Center for the States and while I saw the good work PEW did, I didn't see an immediate connection.  At least I knew what PEW was.  (I lead a sheltered little life in Kansas).

Through fate, or through Ron maybe, I became connected some with PEW in 2008 and over the years have worked with the Elections Initiatives practice considerably.

So it was, as I looked at Matt last Wednesday, I realized that this MEOC conference was an output of my involvement with PEW.

Many of the terrific speakers were with organizations that were funded in some way, at least partially, by PEW.  David Becker from PEW spoke.  And those speakers who were not associated with PEW came because of relationships I had developed by working with PEW.

I've always been skeptical of the benefits from some of the "Leadership XYZ" community programs, but have heard from graduates that they built relationships and contacts that have helped them tremendously.

I'm still not sure, but I can say that this feeling I have with PEW has to be similar.  Or, better.

The conference had more than 200 attendees from Missouri, Kansas, and Iowa, as well as election vendors.  The information came at everyone through a fire hose, one terrific speaker after another.

My mission, selfishly, was to provide my staff with a first-class election administration education opportunity.  To attract the speakers, we needed a wider net of attendees, so the speakers could see their reach was wide.

The room represented administrators for more than two million voters, and election administration for those two million voters will be better in 2016 than in 2012, to some degree, because of the conference.  I'm convinced of that.

I'm also convinced that I am lucky to have a peer group of election administration leaders I'm proud to call friends,  I'm so thankful they came to speak.

Regular readers of this blog know that I typically don't like to name people in posts and by listing Matt early on, that was really the precursor to me listing below the speakers and panel leaders, and friends, whom I'm so grateful:

Tammy Patrick, Christy McCormick, Matt Masterson, Tom Hicks, Monica Crane Childers, Stephanie Sharp, Micheal Mahoney, Kyle Dubbert, Andrew Howell, Don Pyle, Martin White, Susan Greenhalgh, Paul Pate, Kris Kobach, Jason Kander, Tabitha Lehman, Shelley McThomas, Grant Veeder, Whitney May, Tianna Epps-Johnson, Kurt Sampsel, Susan Greenhalgh, David Becker, Wendy Underhill, Will Kraus, Mitch Holmes, Keith Esau, Julia Lynn, John Muante, Christopher Famighetti, and Amber McReynolds.

They made the conference more successful than I could have ever imagined.  Now, on to 2016!  Many photos from the conference can be found through #MEOC2015 on Twitter.  Below shows the room layout and audience, as well as a couple from the Wednesday entertainment of The Capitol Steps.